Monday, September 26, 2016

Last week in Jakobsberg.

Hallå! I just want to say getting all these emails from my all missionary friends around the world makes me so emotional. God gave us all these different cultures, and I love it. Culture is so beautiful. There are so many and they are different in their own way. I love seeing that, even through all the diversity, the gospel is the exact same for every single one of them. :) This really is God's work and I can't express my gratitude to be a part of it. Vi alla är hans barn, alltid.

Anyways this week was an emotional one as well. It was my last week in my little Jakobsberg! So many feels and goodbyes. This place has been my home for the past 6 months and I will cherish every memory I had here. :) It's always so hard saying goodbye to the amazing people you meet. They have such a huge impact on us missionaries.

On Wednesday Teng and Na insisted they make us dumplings for lunch. :) I was sad to say hejdå to them but I told them I would see them again in April when my family comes to pick me up. :) We met with the Cisternas for dinner and Birgitta for fika this week too! They are such sweet members and will be missed dearly. We had some fun chats about James Dean with Birgitta. ;) She is such a sweetheart and converted to the church in her 20s and served a mission here in Sweden when she was younger. I look up to her so much. The swedish members here are so golden.

We met with this family from Eritrea as well who were pretty solid in their christian faith. They invited us in for breakfast and started bible bashing us a little bit saying we were dumb for believing Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost were separate beings and that we believe in more scripture along with the Bible. They wouldn't really let us get a word out and just started throwing a million bible scriptures in our face and trying to prove us wrong. I quietly listened to them and said a small prayer in my heart to help me be able to say something bold to them. At the perfect moment I don't know where the words came from but they just came out of me and I told him (the dad who was bible bashing us) that I admire how knowledgeable he was in the Bible and that he was probably more knowledgeable than I'll ever be. I testified that even though I don't know everything, I knew the holy ghost testifies to us truth and if we read the Bible and the Book of Mormon together with a humble heart to know if they are true and pray to God, in the name of Jesus Christ, we will find it is true. Immediately they were all silent and just flipped to being the sweetest people ever saying they can feel Christ with us. It was such a powerful experience and even though they still refused to even try reading the Book of Mormon I just hid it on their kitchen seat before we left and maybe someday they will open their hearts to read it, and feels its truthfulness. ;)

Anyways we had transfer calls this week as well! It always puts you on the edge of your seat a little bit finding out where you are going to go. We got the call and I will being heading down to Helsingborg with the amazing Syster Campbell and Syster Eldridge!! I could not be more excited to see were this next adventure down in Skåne leads. :)

Sorry I don't have a lot of time but I have loved my time here in Stockholm. :) It has been such a dream and I am going to miss my sweet greenie Syster Matwaychuk and the fun memories we've had together. I tell her everyday that she has been my angel and I am so happy to leave little Jakobsberg in her hands. :) She will do great! Love her, Love Sweden, Love the gospel, and love all of you! Take care and hope to give you more details next week! Ha det så bra och vi ses. :)

Kärlek,
Syster Davis



Teng and Na made us all authenthic chinese food


​Fika with Birgitta. :)


​My fav Marcela and Angie❤.


​Last dance with our Jakobsberg family. Love them.

Monday, September 19, 2016

Funerals, Birthdays, and Vaxholm!

Hejsan allihopa! This has been quite the week. We started off by going to Vaxholm for P-Day and seeing the big fortress again. We did a little hike up the island as well and found little red mushrooms. Love the pretty sights here! It was fun to be with all our missionary friends too.

We got blåsted (when someone doesn't show up) a few times this week too so that was a little tråkigt (suckish) but we made the best out of it. :) We just went out and talked to so many people and had some nice conversations with a few. Also like usual a lot of meanies. This one lady looked at our name tag and just stuck her tongue out at it and pretended to spit at it. :( Soo sad. Kinda hurts sometimes but nothing will ever stop me for being persecuted for His name. :) We taught little Camille again this week and we promised to play some hangman with her before we left. She was laughing so hard at us because it was hard for us to guess the simple swedish words she used.

We got to go on splits with Täby this week as well! That was an adventure. I was with Syster Young and Syster Matwaychuk went to Täby with Syster Trotter. It was so fun to show Syster Young around everywhere and talk to many on the way. We got some MAX for lunch and just caught up on life. Love that girl! We visited Helli in the evening and talked about scriptures and had en trevlig stund tillsammans.

For distrikt meeting it would be the last one for the transfer and Äldste Brawdshaw's last one ever! Whenever a mission goes home we have a funeral service for them to show them how much we appreciated them. We all decided to wear black and the POs, Äldste Halterman, and Blackburn made this legit song for him. We had some meatballs as well! Woop woop.

We met this guy from Poland this week too who invited us for fika and wanted a Mormons Bok in Polish. He was very sweet, but pretty set in his Athiest ways for now. We literally talked about everything. God, Jesus Christ, The restoration, the plan of salvation, evolution, dinosaurs, the word of wisdom, and many other things lol. He had so many questions so it was a nice long conversation. He said he won't convert but he will read the Book of Mormon because he is curious.

We got to meet with Kristin, Teng and Na this week too! They both made us the most amazing asian food ever. We're so spoiled haha. Love them so much and they keep wanted to meet a lot before I move out.

Lastly, the best day of this week...SYSTER MATWAYCHUK'S birthday! :) We've all been waiting for this day for so long!! After church we made this huge dinner and cupcakes for her and the elders wrote her a cute song about Canada. It was such a great day. :) Glad we could do something fun and special for her. She deserves it. Going to miss being her companion. She makes me so happy. Love her so much!

So weird to think I'm leaving Jakobsberg in a week. Going to miss all the people and friends I have made here. Love you all as well and vi hörs!

med Kärlek
Syster Davis


​Finding cool sun clocks



​P-Day fun


​Ä Adcox and Hatch


Party in Vaxholm


​Vackert Vaxholm


​Ä Bradshaw's funeral


Syster Matwaychuk's birthday song.

Monday, September 12, 2016

Uppsala splits!

Good morning everyone. This week was pretty usual. We had a nice lax P-Day again and nice visit to stadhuset. Me and Matwaychuk watched these people feed ducks with skittles and just soaked up the sun a little bit. We met up with our Jakobsberg elder friends later on and hit up River Island (a clothes store lol).

We have been teaching this sweet little girl named Camille, who is getting baptized in December, for the past few weeks and we love it because she corrects our Swedish pronunciation everytime we say something weird. She's our little swedish teacher.

We had a fun dinner this week with Edilene De Soza as well. :) She is from Brazil and made us the most amazing Brazilian food ever! She had a few friends over too so it was nice little gathering. She packed all the left-overs for us and insisted we take them all home! So sweet. Her daughter Nicki is one of my friends who is going to be serving a mission in Salt Lake City Temple Square mission soon. :) She is currently waiting for her visa in Örebro. Miss her so much!

We had district meeting at the office this week too so that was fun! We talked about the scriptures and how important they are when we teach. We did some roleplays and then after for lunch we had a huge BBQ! Det var toppen.

We got to go on splits this week too! I was so stoked because I have never left my area for splits before. This would be my first time in Uppsala! So peppad!! I got to be with with Syster Woolsey. She showed me all around Uppsala while we contacted. Cutest place ever! I played tourist and took pictures of everything haha. It was so beautiful and we got to see domkyrka! Such a fun splits.

We had a great weekend as well. Busy with visits and lessons which is always nice. :) Sunday was great too. It was such a spiritual day for me. So much ljus and glädje all day. Felt the spirit so strongly. After church visited with our friend Zara and just had some great deep conversations. Love her so much. It was such a nice week this week. Enjoying all the little blessings everyday.

Love you all och ses vi snart!

Syster Davis


​Classy Stockholm Zone Pic


North Stockholm disrikt skwad. Besties.


​Study desk. My spot every morning. :)


​Splits in Uppsala this week!


​Domkyrkan! Biggest Kyrka i sverige.


​Typiskt.

Monday, September 5, 2016

Rice, rice, baby.

Hallå igen! Det känns så konstigt att skriva en brev igen eftersom det känns liksom jag skriver den samma saken varje gång haha. Sorry for my repetitiveness and sorry for my bad grammar in english and in swedish. Anyways! This week started great with a fun P-Day at the YSA center with all the stockholm missionaries. It was nice to just relax and chat with some good company. Äldste Scott wanted a haircut too so me and Syster Hansen decided to put our never-before hair salon skills to the test. We both kept joking how we both had Syster Hong as a companion so we must be great hair dressers eller hur? Ä Scott was nice to let us test our skills on him.

We had quite the busy week though! It is nice when you have a lot going on to keep us busy in the Lord's work. :) We met with this sweet girl from Bangladesh who showed us a map of all the churches she wants to visit. She showed us her little Buddha collection as well. She pointed to one of them and said, 'This one is Christian now because it got wet.' lol.

We got to meet with Tony and his sweet daughter this week too. They are the so nice. They had all this fika for us and Tony told us his conversion story. We had many laughs together too and he kept making fun of my swedish by emphasizing on the 'r's.

Me and Syster Matwaychuk had some nice contacting stunds as well. As usual, there were a lot of 'no's but those few people who did listen were worth the hours of rejection. The key is to just make it fun, smile, and laugh. :) This random guy came up to us while we took a break on a bench and asked, 'Why are you guys so smiley? Keep doing what your doing because people really need your happiness here.' It was so kind and made us even more happy. Sometimes it's hard for us to see it but it was just a nice reminder that the light of Christ is always with us and others can see it.

We also had district meeting in Täby this week. It was a great meeting, we talked about how we can teach things in a fun simple way and they did a funny role-play to show an example. We all went to Caliburger for lunch and ran into the Beckstrands at Täby Centrum getting some decorations for the mission home. ;)

We met with Jai and Kennith this week too! It makes me so sad because they are moving to Nortälje so I won't get to see them anymore. :( They just bought this beautiful swedish house. Hope to get to visit them someday! They made us the most delicious Thai food and we went around and shared our favorite scriptures together. Going to miss them so much.

Ward sports night was this week too so that was a blast! We traveled down to Gubbängen and played some basketball, soccer, and inebandy! Såå roligt. Teng and Na came too and surprised us with this heavenly authentic chinese food! Probably some of the best fried-rice ever. 'Made with 11 ingredients,' from the words of Teng. ;)

We had a great fast and testimony on Sunday too. I translated the meeting for David and his brother again and it was such a struggle! It's so hard to translate when people talk so fast and when the older people have gammal svenska lol. This week girl from New York named Danielle came randomly to church too! She was so nice and we laughed that we were all matching with our stripes haha. Had to get a picture. ;) After church us and the elders got invited over to Roxanna and Nicolas' house! They bought us all the ingredients and asked us to make some American pancakes for them. :) Such a fun day and week. Love being here and love serving the Lord with all my heart. Hope you all had a great week. Hejdå till nästa vecka. :)

Med Kärlek
Syster Davis


​Stripes galore with our American friend Danielle!


​$kwad goals


Besties


​Our favorite Teng and Na


​Jai and Kennith. :)